Although I doubt that many people would place James Cameron's AVATAR on the top of a list of the greatest movies ever made, it's hard to deny that the man knows how to create a world and fill it with spectacle. Making close to $3 billion worldwide is all the reason Cameron and 20th Century Fox needed in order to develop a sequel to AVATAR, but I think most of us are wondering why we even need a sequel, let alone four. However, James Cameron gets what James Cameron wants and what James Cameron wants is to spend the next handful of years exploring the world of Pandora. Sigourney Weaver, who appeared in the first AVATAR film as Dr. Grace Augustine, will be returning for the sequels and recently told Variety that they are "amazing" in scope compared to the first film.
In my opinion, the three scripts I’ve read so far are many times more amazing than the first one in terms of their scope. He did a lot of the heavy lifting in the first movie, establishing the family and the relationships and the world, and now he really gets to play.
Despite counting myself among those questioning why AVATAR needs four sequels, a part of me is incredibly curious to see what James Cameron has planned for Jake (Sam Worthington) and Neytiri (Zoe Saldana). We don't know much about where the sequels will take us, but Cameron once teased that the AVATAR story would be a family saga which would follow Jake, Neytiri and their children in their struggles with the humans. At the moment AVATAR 2 is set for a December 2018 release with the remaining sequels following in 2020, 2022 and 2023.